Biocybernetics: methodology and applications

Citation

Rudall, B.H. (2005), "Biocybernetics: methodology and applications", Kybernetes, Vol. 34 No. 7/8. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2005.06734gaa.001

Biocybernetics: methodology and applications

Biocybernetics: methodology and applications

This double issue is devoted to the researches of Professor Yves Cherruault and his colleagues of MEDIMAT, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI, France, and to their fellow researchers worldwide. They are already recognised for their enormous contribution to the fields of mathematical modelling and mathematical methods pertaining to the life sciences. These researches are both innovative and original and have produced methodologies that are well known and appreciated in the world's scientific communities. In particular, some of the applications of these methodologies published here give an indication of their current and potential value especially those in the biological, pharmaceutical, and medical spheres as well as in a large variety of other endeavours. The title Biocybernetics was given to research and development activities of this nature. In the first section that deals with methodology, the details of many established methods, which the authors of the presented papers have refined or simply extended, are given. Methods such as Adomian and Alienor have already been acclaimed globally and we have included some of the newly devised versions. In the second section a selection of applications are included which illustrate how this methodology can be applied to many different processes including those concerned with identification and optimal control. In the third section summaries of research papers in Biocybernetics are listed.

Cyberneticians and Systemists will appreciate the elegance of these methods and the opportunities they create for analysing new and exciting systems in their application to real-life problems. Readers may also wish to know that Professor Yves Cherruault discusses both the theoretical development of these techniques and their application in a published text (Cherruault, 1998), and also in the contributions to Kybernetes published with his colleagues over many years.

As is our usual practice, we have also included some of our regular journal sections in this special double issue.

ReferenceCherruault, Y. (1998), Modèles et méthodes mathematiques pour les sciences du vivant, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris.

Brian H. RudallEditor-in-Chief